The Dalles Mint

The_Dinosaur_Man

I recently learned of this historical tidbit and thought to share it with the group. The Dalles Mint was a proposed facility to accommodate the mining of precious medals in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington state. The building of the facility got so far as the completion of the basement and the first floor, but several unfortunate events stopped it from becoming a functional Mint facility or even an Assay office.

From readings on Wikipedia, some 80,000 prospectors migrated into the Pacific Northwest due to the discovery of gold in Idaho. Senator James Nesmith proposed a Mint to be established in Portland, and while Congress agreed another Mint facility was needed, chose to erect the newly authorized Mint in Dalles City along the Columbia river. Quite a bit inland from Portland, the riverside location would allow for better transport of raw ore from the mines in Idaho.

The authorization for The Dalles Mint occurred on July 4th, 1864. William Logan was appointed as Superintendent. Mary Laughlin donated the land for the Mint, and Harvey A. Hogue supervised construction. Then the unfortunate chain of events began.

William Logan was traveling to The Dalles on the S.S. Brother Jonathan on that ship's final voyage. He went down with the ship.

Several delays and the waning of productive mining were of further concern, and the completion of the Central Pacific Railroad effectively made the Mint obsolete before its construction could be completed. Mint equipment hadn't arrived yet.

Although the basement and first floor were completed in 1869, the rest of the construction process was suspended in 1870. In 1871, a fire ravaged the city surrounding the Mint, and although the building was untouched by the fire, there was a clear change in priorities and construction of the Mint was abandoned in 1873. Even the U.S. Government gave up on it by 1875 when the site was transferred over to the State of Oregon.

The building was eventually completed and has served all sorts of purposes, just never as a U.S. Mint or Assay Office. Ironically, the current owner is an entity known as The Mint, LLC.

Since the branch Mint was approved and obviously didn't produce any coins, it is unknown and up for debate as to what mintmark it would have used. Since Dahlonega was long gone and Denver was still far off in the future, the "D" mintmark might have been resurrected sooner, or perhaps the coins would have borne "DC" for Dalles City much like Carson City has "CC", or there is the possibility of the place using "TD" for The Dalles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dalles_Mint

TomB

This is a really cool post. Thank you, I have never heard of this proposed mint.

MasonG

Do a forum search on "the dalles". There is more to be found.

MsMorrisine

https://www.google.com/search?q="dalles"+site:forums.collectors.com

2windy2fish

Very interesting post @The_Dinosaur_Man!
This kinda stuff is what this forum should be about…

johnny9434

Am excellant read, thanks for the info

MsMorrisine

https://www.usmint.gov/learn/history/overview

it gets a mention there, as well as a list of assay offices

lordmarcovan

Wow, interesting. I'd never heard of this. At first when I saw the title, I thought "Dalles" was a typo for Dallas.

messydesk

I think that had the mint opened, "D" would have been avoided, as it was too soon after the Dahlonega mint ended operations and the intent was for gold to be struck there. I'm guessing most likely "DD" would have been used, much as "CC" was for Carson at the same time to avoid similar confusion with Charlotte. Dalles being plural, having two Ds would have actually made some sense. Another possibility would be "W" for Wascopum, which was the name of the city from 1853-1860, or for the Wascopam Mission, which was established there in 1838, or for Wasco County or the native Wasco tribe.

johnny9434

A most interesting read. Knowledge is good 👍

Raptor48

Thanks, I love history and coin history specifically.

fathom

Here is the Boise ID assay office opened in 1872. One of only 7 in the country at that time. That may be another reason they shelved The Dalles.